For the past decade, Senator Alan Peter Cayetano has been styling himself a champion of Philippine sports.
His first involvement in Philippine sports was 10 years ago, when he served as honorary president and co-chairman of the local organizing committee for the 2016 FIVB Women’s Club World Championship.
His role eventually expanded. When the country was preparing to host the 30th Southeast Asian Games, Cayetano and his cohorts wrested power from the Jose “Peping” Cojuangco-led Philippine Olympic Committee, a power play that helped him become the event’s sole organizer with access to massive government funds.
He retained a prominent role in volleyball when his former teacher, Ramon “Tats” Suzara, assumed the presidency of the Philippine National Volleyball Federation in 2021.
Suzara was booted out last year, but Cayetano is still very much visible, smiling, waving and associating himself with the athletes under the bright lights of Philippine sports.
But earlier this week, Cayetano’s carefully fabricated identity as a sportsman blew up.
With the Senate set to tackle the application for naturalization of Bennie Boatwright on third and final reading, Cayetano — then the Senate President — pulled off a stunt when he and the then majority bloc refused to show up at the session hall in the aftermath of Senator Jinggoy Estrada’s arrest on plunder charges,
The chamber failed to reach a quorum and Boatwright could do nothing but go home and wait for the resumption of the session the next day.
And it still didn’t happen.
Cayetano and his allies didn’t show up the next two days before Senator Francis Escudero realized that enough was enough and he bolted from the Cayetano bloc to help the new majority achieve a quorum. They quickly voted Senator Sherwin Gatchalian as Senate President Pro Tempore before calling for the adjournment “sine die” of the 20th Congress.
Unless a special session is called, the Senate will not reconvene until 26 July, which means that Boatwright’s bid for naturalization has evaporated, making it impossible for him to see action when Gilas Pilipinas defends its basketball title in the 20th Asian Games this September.
Clearly, the legislative drama wasn’t because of Cayetano’s defense of the integrity of the Senate; it was because he desperately wanted to cling to power and protect his leadership ahead of the impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte on 6 July.
We all know that Cayetano is a staunch Duterte supporter. In fact, he ran for vice president under Rodrigo Duterte in 2016.
In the Duterte administration, Cayetano’s clout grew, serving as secretary of Foreign Affairs and then as House Speaker, where he got caught up in a power struggle after he refused to honor his term-sharing commitment with former Marinduque Rep. Lord Allan Velasco.
But if Cayetano were really the sportsman he has been shamelessly portraying himself to be, he would have set politics aside and worked on the naturalization of Boatwright.
Boatwright would have been a big help to Gilas Pilipinas. With the Asian Games organizers imposing a “passport only” rule, Boatwright could have teamed up with Justin Brownlee, Kai Sotto, AJ Edu, June Mar Fajardo and Quentin Millora-Brown to form a solid team.
In short, Boatwright would have been a game-changer. Gilas Pilipinas could have been a super team with a very good chance of making history with back-to-back Asian Games titles if only Cayetano’s thirst for power didn’t override national pride.
If anything good came out of this exhausting episode of “Senateflix,” it was that Filipino sports fans have finally seen Alan Peter Cayetano’s true colors.
Yes, he may quote Bible verses and spin narratives all he wants, but the fans are now aware that he will do anything to cling to power, even if it costs the country a chance to achieve glory in the only sport that truly matters.
